


Symbolic Foreshadowing: Analyzing the KH1 Opening in the Context of the Heroine’s Journey

by The_Violet_Howler



Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [11]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Gen, Heroine's Journey, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-14 00:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29784093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Violet_Howler/pseuds/The_Violet_Howler
Summary: An analysis of the Kingdom Hearts 1 opening movie through the lens of the Heroine's Journey
Relationships: Riku & Sora (Kingdom Hearts)
Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765777
Comments: 4
Kudos: 3





	Symbolic Foreshadowing: Analyzing the KH1 Opening in the Context of the Heroine’s Journey

**Author's Note:**

> “But was it a dream, or a prophecy?”  
> \--Puck (Gargoyles; S2E43: Future Tense)

It’s generally widely acknowledged in fan spaces that the opening sequence of the original game, despite the fantastical visuals, foreshadows key elements of the game’s story, as well as the roles that Sora, Riku, and Kairi each play in the narrative and how their connections relate to one another. Riku standing in or under a giant wave with his hand reaching out for Sora is a clear visual connection to their separation as Destiny Islands falls that foreshadows his fall to darkness in the game itself. Meanwhile, Sora is separated from Kairi at the end of the opening just like how they are separated at the end of the game. **  
**

But looking closely at the symbolism reveals even more layers of meaning hidden within the first Kingdom Hearts game’s opening, especially when the series’ adherence to the Heroine’s Journey is taken into account. 

We open with Sora having to shield his eyes from the blinding light of the sun before he looks to see Riku standing out in the water. The connection between Riku and the sun is reinforced in Chain of Memories, when his redemption is referred to as “The Road to Dawn,” referring to the sun rising at the end of the night to mark the beginning of a new day. This is made explicit when the original montage is recreated shot-for-shot in the opening tutorial of KH3, with a bright light in Riku’s place. 

Kairi, meanwhile is the opposite. Her appearance in the KH1 opening music video is accompanied by a sunset, a trend which repeats itself across the series. She and Sora talk on the dock at sunset the day before the trio plans to depart with their raft. She welcomes Sora home at sunset during the ending of Kingdom Hearts II. She and Sora share the paopu fruit in KH3 at sunset and the game ends with them saying goodbye before the sun sets. But it isn’t the sunset itself that Kairi is associated with. Rather, it’s the disappearance or absence of the sun. 

Her proper introduction in the original game is framed in shadows as she blocks Sora’s view of the sun on the beach. The illusion of her that Sora sees at Merlin’s House later in the game expresses a love of dark, musty places, comparing the Mystical House to the Secret Place on the island. Both are places with little or no sunlight, with the cave on Destiny Islands only having a small hole in the roof, while Traverse Town is always shown in endless night. And after her awakening in Hollow Bastion, she spends her time in Traverse Town at the Secret Waterway, even deeper underground than Merlin’s House. 

Kingdom Hearts III ends with the visual of Sora fading from his reality as the sun sets while the secret ending depicts him and Riku waking up in Quadratum, a place outside reality, at night. As a place outside of reality, Quadratum checks all the boxes for the Descent stage of the Heroine’s Journey. This phase of the narrative pattern marks the point at which the protagonist undergoes a period of self reflection in order to confront the parts of their psyche that they have thus far refused to consciously acknowledge. 

Riku’s presence and visual association with the sun is critical, because if Sora is about to undergo a “dark night of the soul,” then it makes perfect sense for the end of his Descent to be heralded by sunrise imagery. In Light Youth/Dark Youth stories and romantic Heroine’s Journeys, the protagonist and their Animus are typically separated from each other emotionally at the beginning of the story. The rift between the two keeps the main character from achieving inner balance and metaphorically keeps them both trapped in childhood by holding them back from maturing into their best, fullest selves. 

Falling into water or darkness in the Kingdom Hearts series is associated with physical and emotional separation, as well as the severing of bonds. So it makes sense then that the opening music video uses that imagery to illustrate that initial rift between them, as well as how that separation is quickly followed by the visual of Sora falling into the dark void surrounding the Dive to the Heart. 

On one level, this can be read as a metaphor for Sora’s Descent, where he is isolated from the people he cares about. But some recent developments over the last few years have given it another potential meaning that was probably not planned intentionally. 

One of Disney’s most recent properties to attempt the Heroine’s Journey was the Star Wars sequel trilogy, depicting Rey following the path of the Heroine’s Journey with Ben “Kylo Ren” Solo as her Animus. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi followed the first two acts of the framework to the letter.

However the finale of the trilogy, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, completely abandons the Heroine's Journey formula, removing any sense of growth from Rey’s narrative and ultimately killing off her Animus. The film ends with her travelling alone to Tatooine, the literal starting point of the franchise, where she buries Luke and Leia’s lightsabers in the sand and takes the last name Skywalker for herself. Regardless of what fans who enjoyed the film may think about what the ending was meant to convey about how long she was going to stay on Tatooine, the last image that audiences have is the girl who grew up on a desert planet but wanted something more going back to a desert planet with no clear goal for the future. 

Coming of age narratives that break away from the structure of what the story is setting up leave the main character metaphorically trapped in childhood. These endings strip their personal arc of its momentum and leave the audience feeling as if the character has learned nothing and that their growth has stagnated or even regressed. At the end of the Rise of Skywalker, Rey slides down the sand dunes of the Lars homestead the same way she slid down the sand dunes on Jakku in The Force Awakens, dressed in light colors the way she was in the beginning when she was ignorant of what was going on out in the wider galaxy. The KH1 opening ends with Sora standing on a stained glass pillar depicting Snow White, the first Disney princess. 

While Disney movies are generally acknowledged as something that adults can enjoy, there is still a general attitude in western (or at least American) culture that Disney (and animation as a whole) is solely for children. Many Kingdom Hearts fans who want to see the series “grow up” are most often the ones who call for the series to drop the Disney elements entirely and become more like Final Fantasy. So even if the narrative of the story itself doesn’t say anything, the visuals of Disney are still associated with childhood by many. And that visual of Sora standing on a stained-glass depiction of the first Disney movie serves to connect Sora to that Disney aspect of the series. 

So the symbolism of the KH1 opening can be read as both subtle visual foreshadowing of the narrative pattern and a silent warning of how deviating from that pattern will fundamentally break the narrative. If the rift between the protagonist and the Animus is not properly healed, then it will ultimately leave Sora isolated from the people he cares about and trapped in childhood while everyone around him grows up. 


End file.
